Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “The Truth About the Escobar Folding Phone!”.
Hey, what’s up guys mkbhd here, alright story time, so it’s 2020 folding smartphones are all the rage and there’s a bunch of different options now, almost none of which you should probably actually buy. But I mean we have the galaxy Z flip from Samsung. We have the Galaxy fold, the Moto razor and then sort of the rest. You know everything from the TCL trifold concept phone to the Royal flexpa and you may have seen another story floating around of another folding phone by Escobar, yeah that Escobar just a little filler in on the Escobar name. If you’re not familiar so Pablo Escobar was the Colombian drug, lord ended up being known as basically the wealthiest criminal in history for monopolizing cocaine trade into the United States before fun fact. He died of a gunshot wound to the head.
The day before I was born. So you know this isn’t exactly a positive sentiment around this name like being known for the killings of police officers and politicians and making Colombia the murder capital of the world. Not the best way to have your name known, but it is a known name like y’all.
Have heard of Escobar so now suddenly on every tech website? There’S this new folding phone with the Escobar name on it? Curiously, and it’s getting a lot of eyeballs. Turning a lot of heads very interesting and it’s 3 to 50 bucks and looking at the actual phone, it is a curious one. It’S a gold accent which is a nice touch, but if you study the specs or the design long enough at all, you literally realize it’s just a royal flux pie with a gold accent taped to it. So naturally I ordered one.
So, on December 5th 2019, I spent my 350 bucks free shipping and placed my Escobar fold order. Something a lot of people think about this channel. Is that, like I get everything for free and while it’s true that I get review units and I will make first impressions videos with those I end up, buying pretty much everything that I review on this channel. I got so. I haven’t reviewed the motor razor folding phone yet, for example, because I sent the review unit back. That’S what I did the first impressions with and now the one that I bought spend allayed by several weeks. So anyway, I didn’t reach out to Escobar Inc. I didn’t even think to ask if they had a review program.
I just quietly bought one, so that was in December and yeah. I never got it. I mean I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. It was a little suspicious to begin with.
I mean you look around their website and it is it’s a little suspect, there’s some pretty wild pictures and statements trying to sell you this phone, some some pretty bold claims and it’s just overall, not the most professional looking website. I’Ve ever bought a phone from, but I think we knew from the beginning. I wasn’t I’ve really ever gon na get this phone. Like I put down the money in the off chance, I was surprised and then hey that would be kind of funny. But when I put my order into the tracker they never updated from pending, pending it just sort of said it was in production for months. So that was it.
You know we never made a video on it. We were sharing some other pretty cool stuff at the time it’s sort of went under the radar. It was just lost money, that’s sort of where I thought it would end.
But then we saw headlines of another new Escobar fold phone. It was who’s the Escobar fold and once again there were articles there were headlines. There were even some videos of this new thing: a $ 400 Escobar, folding phone.
That looks like this. It’S a it’s looking kind of familiar again: oh, that’s! That’S just a samsung galaxy fold and then on February 2nd I got an email from Escobar Inc, just asking mailing address like what’s your mailing address at that point I was again like sort of genuinely interested, but after a few back-and-forth so basically declined because I wanted They wanted to guarantee a video by sending it to us, and I I wasn’t willing to commit to guaranteeing a video just from them, sending a phone. That’S not something we do so they ended up not sending one. But but I I did buy a second one, because apparently I liked giving money away to anything tech related.
So maybe, if you guys wan na, buy the merch and support, we won’t have to worry about this so much, but I bought another Escobar fold too. So I still didn’t have the first one I went to their site again bought the second one under a different name. So now I’ve given them $ 750 free shipping both times and I’ve, gotten nothing in return. So for a while, I didn’t get one and neither did many other people, but then videos started popping up and this always happens. I’Ve I’ve had this happen before where I declined, something in my inbox some opportunity and then a week later, I see a bunch of videos about it on YouTube in my sub box, etc. So this is one of those things I was curious about, because the product isn’t that great, but the company behind it and the the schematics behind it are so weird.
So I tweeted this zero out of 10 would not recommend didn’t get the phone both times. I ordered, but then that night believe it or not. When I got home from the studio to home, which is the shipping address that I put in for my first order, guess what was waiting for me at my door, an Escobar fold box, so on February 24th, which is like four days after this, this tweet and The box, showing up, I got an email saying that they upgraded my fold, one order to a fold to which I guess, I believe, because it had my name on it from the first order I placed, and it went to the shipping address of my first order. I placed and other people have gotten the same, upgrade happen, who who also happened to be tech reviewers? So, like the only reason I’m talking about this is because it’s based around a tech product like I talk tech, but if this was happening with like a kitchen appliance product or some makeup product, or something else like that, I probably wouldn’t have cared nearly as much. But because it’s tech – and they really seem to be trying hard to make – it seem like a great phone to buy.
Well, that’s what made it so fascinating to me. Okay, so the unboxing experience super simple and within about 30 seconds of using a phone and no I’m not putting my sim card in it, but from using the phone just for a little bit. It’S pretty clear. This appears to be a legit samsung galaxy fold and the new one at that. So I have my regular galaxy fold here with the dust caps on the hinges and the new slightly stiffer hinge and everything and this Escobar fold it’s the same phone with a gold sticker glued to it.
No, actually it’s it’s actually a galaxy fold with gold, tinfoil adhesive to it. You take a bit of that gold off of the hinge on the back and right, underneath is that Samsung logo right where it’s supposed to be and the the gold foil comes off the back with a box cutter or a knife, or really enough heat to melt. The adhesive, so it’s not pretty but yeah, it is an actual galaxy fold, fully working any of the stuff that normally comes in the box and it’s a really poor rebranding job. It’S an actual galaxy fold.
So from this point, if you’re reviewing an Escobar fold, you’re really just reviewing a samsung galaxy fold with a gold sticker on the back and some weird pre-installed muggshot wallpapers, but the galaxy fold costs eighteen hundred dollars and the Escobar fold costs four hundred dollars. So how are they pulling this off? Well, it’s not just the lower quality packaging. It’S not just the lower quality marketing. My theory is that they are going through orders, finding the names of youtubers or just people in tech, media or people who, they think will talk about the phone if they get it and shipping those and then just not shipping. The rest, that’s probably why they found my first order. Cuz I had my name attached to it and why they upgraded me and shipped mine out, they were probably hoping. I would speak pretty positively about it. That’S why I tweeted what I did, but if you really want to get into it, they tell everything on their site. So the two main people involved are these two guys, Roberto Escobar, so Pablo Escobar, his older brother and chief of assassinations and this other guy Olaf Gustafson.
Who is the CEO of Escobar Inc? Now I don’t know why both the photos look like mug shots, maybe that’s their cool, vibe or whatever, but there’s a Twitter account behind this Olaf guy, who honestly just looks like a younger, maybe somewhat tech-savvy, dude who’s, just convinced this older guy. He can use the Escobar name and make them lots more money from it. So he’s tweeted all these articles and tons of photos with celebrities somehow and he seems very proud of any press he can get in, including when he also cloned the boring company flamethrower and tried to get Ilan to stop selling his and when he helped.
Mr. Escobar start a cryptocurrency that didn’t exactly work out, but the marketing for the Escobar fold is easily the best part. So if you go to their YouTube channel, which is truly incredible, I’ll link it below it currently has about fourteen videos on it, including a one minute, video panning back and forth across five fold.
Phones, maybe all that they’d made at that time, there’s an unboxing video that I’m pretty sure. If I show more than about three more seconds of it, it’s gon na get this video D monetized. They have a video called our IP Samsung comm, where they take a bunch of non rebranded, original Galaxy, folds out of the box and then put safety glasses on, but no other protective clothing and then just starts smashing Galaxy folds with sledgehammers until they literally catch on Fire and if you look it up, if you go to our IP samsung.com, which is in the title and this whole videos point, the Escobar guys bought that URL and they have a redirect to Escobar inc.com, which is crazy, because this phone wouldn’t exist without Samsung’s phone And then there’s two other endorsement videos, so I guess this is really how you make sure you sell a lot of phones from Chris Hanson and Anna unka, hey guys Chris Hanson here of Hanson vs.
predators and To Catch a Predator. I just wanted to tell you all that I’ve seen this amazing new smartphone called the Escobar fold tube. It appears to be the best phone out right now. I’Ve been looking at the transcripts so have a seat check it out and remember I’ll, be watching. It’S probably a good thing: they disabled comments on these videos. Hi, I’m gon na ain’t get from Sweden. I used to be married to the singer, Paul Anka and I just wanted to tell you that they’re Escobar’s faulty smartphone, it’s a really really incredible innovation from some amazing people in Stockholm, Sweden I’ll hope you guys will enjoy it and use it. A lot.
Lots of love mmm. I also conveniently both of these celebrities are on a site called cameo, which is where you can send requests and pay 50 or 100 bucks or so and get a personalized video in return. I’M pretty sure videos on this site are typically like. Oh, have a Arnold Schwarzenegger say happy birthday to your friend or something I doubt that these two people even know that their videos are being used to help promote a scam.
So look I’m a tech reviewer, so I’m typically just focusing on the final product. The finished thing should you buy it or not, but this piece of tech we’ve reviewed already it’s the Galaxy fold. I’Ve talked about it, it just has gold tin foil on the back, so the interesting part now becomes the behind-the-scenes part, which is the company. That’S trying to maybe sell some of them and also not ship, most of them they’re trying to scam you it’s one of those situations where you know you have to take any preferential treatment you might get with a gigantic grain of salt. So I guess the lesson.
We’Ve learned is: there are way way way too many cases of people not getting there Escobar fold for me to ever. Recommend you ever buy anything from this company. So don’t don’t buy an Escobar fold too. If you want a galaxy fold, that is very pricey, but I also typically don’t recommend you buy one either and and just for your own safety of money don’t buy anything that any of these guys are associated with at all.
I took the hit, so you don’t have to there. You have it. If you want an Escobar fold review watch my galaxy folder view. I’Ve already done it link below the like button. If you want to check it out, that’s pretty much it that’s the truth. Thanks for watching catch, you guys in the next one peace .